Love Potion Number 9
by ChrissiHR
Summary: AU: The pack knows how to make their own fun like no other group of friends, but they all fail to notice the crates of moonshine they've lifted have unusual markings, made by Old Quil for his own ends. What's so special about this batch of the old man's 'shine? Maybe they should have asked before they drank Love Potion #9.
1. Chapter 1: Embry

**Dedication:** _For meliz875. _

_Happy Embry month! … or, er … birthday month. ;)_

**A/N:** _This is my little way of saying 'thank you' to Mel for putting up with my shit and helping me make my plutty crap crap-tastic. This particular fic is also my own personal penance for saying I hate it when people name fics after song titles. ;) This was supposed to be a two-shot, but, uh … yeah, not happening. It got outta hand pretty quickly. Now it's just going to be whatever it ends up being. Short story, maybe? No idea. It's M-rated for later chapters where THERE WILL BE LEMONS._

_Sorry for the delay in getting this one out. I had to build a double-wide alien tech stealth couch fort, the floor was lava, and I had no internets for a time, but it's okay because I have been saved by the Hypnotoad. All hail Hypnotoad._

**Pre-reader: **_Tamfan and meliz875 (yes, she helped pre-read her own birthday present, don't judge me)_

**_BTW, I did a fandom-related interview with Stella last week. You can check it out on her blog, Dontcallmeleelee's Mess: _**_ . _**_. _**

**Inspiration for this chapter:**

"Pink Moon" by Nick Drake

"Titanium ft. Sia" by David Guetta

- - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - -

**Chapter 1**

- - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - -

**_Frrrmmp!_**

Embry froze, startled by the thunderous noise that interrupted the eerie quiet of the forests of La Push that bright, moonlit June night. Through the open shed door, the sight of a rare, glowing pink full moon hung in the sky over La Push. It cast a faint rosy light on everything below and lit up the night bright enough for even Bella to move around easily in the dark for once.

Listening intently for any movement or warning from outside the ramshackle shed where he and Bella crouched nervously over three cases of Old Quil's homemade rez moonshine, Embry tightened his grip on the crates he held.

_Clink, clink._

Bella's eyes were wide and sparkling with mischief as she strained to hold onto her crate, rattling the bottles inside.

Carefully resting his two crates of ill-gotten booty on a box of old Popular Mechanics magazines, Embry leaned closer to Bella to whisper in her ear, "That wasn't the signal. That was Quil's wolf farting."

Bella snickered, choking, trying not to laugh aloud and give away their location in case there was someone nearby to hear them sneaking around.

Continuing in a whisper, Embry was choking down his own laughter, "He had, like, fourteen hot dogs with sauerkraut cooked in beer at that picnic for you and Hazel at Sam and Em's earlier."

Outside the ramshackle shed, a motley crew comprised of Quil, Paul, Leah, Jared, Kim, Seth, Jake, and Bella's college roommate, Hazel, laughed quietly at Embry's whispered remarks as they stood watch, prepared to warn the moonshine thieves within should Old Quil or one of the other _real_ adults turn up unexpectedly.

Paul griped loudly, "_Fuck_, man. That was nasty," as a laughing lupine bark answered.

A chorus of, _Shh! _and muffled gagging carried in through the open door.

One would think with all the available shapeshifter manpower that someone _other_ than Bella would have been a better choice for the delicate and stealthy job of swiping Old Quil's 'shine. The problem was that Bella was the only one who knew where he hid his stash in the shed. The others may have been able to sniff it out, but Bella was the only one who knew how to open the hidden compartment without destroying the door and giving away that it had been breached by the world's unstealthiest group of shapeshifting burglars and their crafty, pint-sized, human ring-leader.

The one time, weeks earlier, that Bella had 'accidentally stumbled' across Old Quil bottling his secret recipe in the shed, he had mistakenly assumed that she was still the good girl he'd never have to worry about and so, hadn't bothered to hide what he was doing while he answered her innocuous questions about some lesser known tribal legends.

Little did he know, she was merely a trojan horse**—**the pack's unassuming and unlikely advance scout.

As it turned out, Old Quil didn't know his great-niece quite as well as he thought. She was more like Quil the Younger than _anyone_ suspected.

Because, when it came right down to it, Bella _could_ lie. She'd learned all kinds of new skills and picked up a few unsavory habits while she was away at school.

Hell, thieving the moonshine had been her idea in the first place.

Embry thought is was the best idea she'd ever had.

He told her so, too, right before she drafted him to be her second for their 'shine-thieving escapade later that night. Quil had quickly volunteered to be their getaway wolf before the others chimed in that they wanted in, too.

The pack hadn't killed a vampire in months. Things were a little dull on the rez while Bella had been away at school in Seattle.

The fact that she'd somehow managed to get paired up with a Hawaiian shape-shifter for her college roommate two years ago was the main reason the La Push shifters were all eager for some- _any_ kind of excitement.

Hazel came from a long line of shapeshifters—the last descendents of Kamehameha.

Thankfully, her type of shifter was every bit as strong and fast in their human forms as they were their spirit forms.

Because Hazel phased into an orca.

Quil just about shit a kitten the first time she phased orca mid-cliff-dive one sunny Saturday afternoon in early October nearly two years earlier. The rest of the pack was no less surprised, but Quil- Quil was _certain_ it was love at first sight.

Unfortunately for poor, heartbroken Quil, the love at first sight had actually only been on Jake's and Hazel's parts that day. Jake had run over to the cliffs to join them when his patrol ended after the pups had phased in, babbling excitedly about Bella's newest shape-shifting friend.

Jake and Hazel looked into one anothers' eyes, but didn't imprint. They had no need to. They recognized immediately in one another their mate. It truly _was_ love at first sight. The real deal. No hocus pocus required.

The meeting between the two dominant shifters awakened a deeply-buried instinct within the two of them, one they fought daily until the Elders could research it and tell them more about it. They would likely be the first double-marking in the two tribes' histories. They waited, though, holding out as long as they could and hoped the Elders could tell them more before they did something irreversible that they might regret later.

Billy was delighted and encouraged the two at every opportunity to complete the marking ritual.

Hazel's older brother and her pod's Alpha, Nui, took some convincing.

Being the marked mate of the Alpha of a pack on the mainland meant Hazel would be irrevocably _tied_ to that land.

_Land._

Where she couldn't phase to protect herself. Where her pod was thousands of miles away if there was an emergency. Where she was the only shape-shifter capable of chasing a vamp into the ocean.

_To fight it alone._

Nui immediately relocated two of his and Hazel's younger sisters, Laurel and Noelani who had volunteered to go willingly, on a semi-permanent basis to the mainland to support Hazel who needed more back-up than usual because her new human best friend Bella was basically catnip to vampires.

The problem was that all the vampires _followed_ the catnip.

The second big problem, as Nui saw it, was that his younger twin sisters had almost immediately also found their life mates among the members of the La Push Pack—Jake's younger cousin, Collin and Collin's best friend Brady. Laurel and Lani were delighted at the tender age of fifteen to find their equally young mates—and so near their sister, too.

He caved when all three of his sisters begged him to let them make the move to La Push permanent. Hazel was old enough to act as their guardian officially, but would be in Seattle at school most of the time, so Sam and Emily stepped up, offering to take responsibility for the twins on a day-to-day basis until Hazel lived with Jake in La Push full time.

Mollified by the former La Push Alpha's offer and his fatherly demeanor, Nui was much more amenable when Billy eventually approached him about enrolling the twins in the Tribal School in La Push with Brady and Collin, and offered to help the three girls find a nice, low-maintenance place to live on the rez. He also offered the full support of the council—whatever it took to help keep the young shifters together with their mates.

The Kamehameha Pod, though roughly the same size as the La Push Pack, had more older and experienced members. Whereas the Quileute truly couldn't afford to lose even one of their younger, less experienced Protectors to an overseas mate or pack.

Fortunately, the Kamehameha name came with more than just a long and storied past. It also came with trust funds. Nui decided it was worth the investment to build in La Push. It looked like they would be mingling tribes for a good long time to come.

The Hawaiian Alpha was worried about sending more of his pod, though. Letting his remaining sisters and brothers attend the graduation party scheduled for Bella and Hazel in La Push could mean losing more of them to mates in the La Push pack before others in their own tribe were old enough to phase in the islands. He decided to keep most of his pod at home, offering instead to fly Hazel, Jake, Bella and a friend or two out to the islands for another party and some homegrown Hawaiian fun to celebrate their accomplishments in a few weeks.

In the meantime, the La Push Pack knew how to make its own brand of fun.

Embry hefted his crates and gave Bella a nudge toward the open door after he heard Jake whisper to give the all-clear.

They hustled out to the Ateara's backyard. The fair skin of Bella's cleavage pushed up by the tiny white bikini that was held in place with little more than a few large, metal O-rings and some spandex was aglow with a faint, cherry-blossom-pink flush that caught Embry's eye. She may have been tiny, but—as a late bloomer—she'd come home from college racked and stacked.

Embry noticed.

All the time.

He began to notice changes in her long before she ever left for college.

But the progress was slow. Little better off than a forgotten shut-in, he'd find her curled up on the couch in Jacob's garage more often than not, not speaking, not even feigning interest in the one-sided conversation Jacob kept up for her benefit—hoping against hope that some topic would spark her interest and engage her in the real world once more.

Oh, sure, she was eating again, not much, but enough to satisfy Sam who saw her as his responsibility. He felt the failure more deeply than anyone else. He'd known what the Cullens were and, for a time, was the only one with the strength to intervene—to show her how she was affected by their thrall, dependent on the trace amounts of venom that once hung like a thick fog in her bedroom. The vaporous poison had been so thick, Sam could hardly bear to walk into the Swan home at one time.

Bella and Charlie had been breathing that disgusting, deathly smog for _months_.

Poor Bella had been exposed to it twenty-four hours a day from what he'd heard. In a brief moment of clarity, she had whispered that one terrifying secret to Jacob after she'd had a nightmare, by way of explaining why she slept so poorly and screamed so much. She wasn't accustomed to being alone, even at night.

The fucking leech had been creeping in her window and watching her sleep every night before he left her.

Sam had talked to Charlie, explained that she was lonely. Because her dad often worked doubles, Edward used to visit her at night to keep her company—had been sneaking into her room for months, she admitted to Sam. With Edward gone, she was hyper aware of the loneliness and, in her dreams, she was grieving for him in a way. Edward had become a safety net practically overnight for a suddenly codependent Bella.

She hated being alone so much.

Charlie had already pulled her out of school. She had more than enough credits to graduate from her advanced placement courses in Phoenix and her teachers at Forks said she really wasn't _there_ even when she was in class. The final straw was when the school psychologist had suggested having her evaluated and institutionalized.

He may not have known what went down in the woods that day between his daughter and Edwin, but Charlie was cop enough to know that it wasn't normal. Bella's behavior may have been abnormal, but something about it all seemed _off_ to Charlie. He didn't think doctors could help.

So when Sam asked, Charlie caved and Bella began sleeping over at Sam and Em's place in their guest room. She was rarely alone. Charlie knew this, too.

It started off simply enough. Emily had asked Kim and Leah to come over for a girls night with her and Bella while Sam ran patrol overnight. Bella had been sleeping in the guest room, but was still restless, often getting up to wander the house in the middle of the night to escape her dreams. Emily worried that with Sam gone on patrol, Bella might become even more uneasy in a home not her own without a wolf protector nearby.

Deciding that every girl needs a distraction sometimes, Emily plotted like a general.

She picked up a couple of movies that were sure to cheer Bella up. Picking Jake's brain, she chose two movies that were certain not to remind her of her recent break-up that gave a tongue-in-cheek nod to their supernaturally-weird lives that might break through to the girl; Hot Fuzz and Paul.

Emily nailed it.

Kim's stomach may have turned a few times during their movie night, but Bella actually _laughed_. Out loud. Not loudly, but it was loud enough for human ears to hear.

Gore, gross-out humor, and sarcasm weren't the average girl's cup of tea, but then, Bella had never been the average girl. Leah had enjoyed herself, too, much to her own surprise.

The four of them dozed off together in the living room in their pajamas where Sam and Jared found them after patrol the next morning just as the next shift—Paul and Embry—were swinging by to check in before their own patrol.

Leah was passed out cold in Sam's recliner, legs crossed, arms behind her head—anyone stumbling across her would think she was laying out on a beach somewhere instead of the Uley's living room. Emily was curled up at one end of the couch under a blanket and, at the other end, Bella and Kim had dozed off arm-in-arm, feet propped up on pillows on the coffee table with half a bowl of spilled popcorn scattered across their laps. Kim was drooling on Bella's shoulder and Bella's head was tipped back on the cushions, face relaxed in the soft lines of sleep. The dark circles under her eyes had all but disappeared overnight.

Emily began to notice a pattern; Bella slept better when she wasn't alone—not just in the house, but in the recliner, on the floor, or couch—wherever. The morning after one of their girls' nights, the patrol shift coming off duty would invariably find Bella curled up in the living room with Kim, Emily, or Leah.

After that, it was like someone had flipped a switch. Bella couldn't get _enough_ sleep. Verging on narcoleptic, the poor, exhausted girl began dozing off whenever she was in close proximity to one of her wolfy pals. She'd passed out talking to Jake in the Rabbit one day while he was working on the dome light inside. Always one for rolling with the punches, he'd adjusted their seats to lay back and curled up beside her for a couple of hours so she wouldn't wake alone.

A few days after that, she passed out on Quil on the floor at Jared's house. He was talking to his cousin and playing with the ends of one of her pretty auburn curls and she had just fallen asleep leaning against him while the others watched Nitro Circus on TV.

Seth was next. She was listening to him chatter away on the porch steps at the Clearwater place one day while she waited for Leah and Embry to come off of patrol. She leaned her elbows back on the top step and the next thing Seth knew, she was slumping backwards, passed out cold on the stairs.

Embry rushed up to them, filthy from from patrol just as an equally-grubby Leah emerged from the woods. Running his hands over her gently, he looked for injuries, "What happened?

"I think she just fell asleep again, man. I wasn't even that close! Emily said she thought it was our body heat making her drowsy, so I was keeping my distance," Seth ran shaking hands through his hair, worried that this thing with Bella was getting out of hand.

"Don't stress it, man. I think she just spent so many months without sleeping that now that her mind remembers how to shut down and let her rest, it's working overtime to catch up," Embry picked her up gently, cradling her against his chest. "I'll take her back to Sam's. See if she can sleep this one off in bed for once."

"She was here waiting for Lee-" Seth began.

"You had plans?" Embry asked, surprised. He had no idea Bella was going out and doing things besides cat-napping all over the rez.

"Just a 3-D movie in Port A. She would have passed out in the dark theater ten minutes into the movie anyway. No worries," Leah assured him, waving him off.

At Sam's, Emily had fretted about where to put her. She was doing laundry and all of Bella's bedding was in the wash. Embry carried her into the living room and arranged her on the couch with a blanket to trap his lingering body heat so she wouldn't wake when he moved away. The second he did, though, she stirred, her fingers scratching lightly at his arm.

Emily looking at him beseechingly.

He nodded at her.

Turning back to Bella, he lifted her just enough to crawl underneath, flicking the blanket out over both of them and falling asleep himself minutes later to the sound of the soothing beat of her heart.

They slept for sixteen hours straight.

Embry woke to the sounds of Sam discussing the sleep situation with the Elders in the kitchen.

The talking stopped. Embry heard the distinct sound of Sam's gait as he crossed the room to stand in the doorway before asking, "She awake?"

Embry brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles, whispering, "Not yet. Soon, though."

"What do you mean, 'soon'? How do you know?" Sam's forehead creased in confusion.

"Don't know. Just do. Another hour—she'll be awake. A little better, too," he promised, pressing his lips to her forehead. She sighed and tipped her chin down, angling her head in under his.

Sam came to kneel beside the couch, resting a hand on Bella's back, unconsciously rubbing gentle circles to soothe their ailing pack sister, "The Elders think that the sleepiness is the venom-poisoning making her body shut down. They're worried."

"They don't need to be," Embry assured him. "She's just taking what her body needs right now. When she's well-rested, we can work on the rest."

Sam didn't ask again how Embry knew. Sam _did_ know that Bella wasn't Embry's imprint, but he would also swear there was something else between the two, some connection that could only be described as _other_. He chose not to question it, or his brother's instincts. Embry was certain that she was just healing her own way and the time would come when they could help her with the next step if they were patient and followed her body's cues.

So that's what they did. Emily encouraged Bella to take more long naps—though she slept longer and better with Embry than anyone else for some reason.

_Other_, Sam would often remind himself when he worried about Bella developing a new, unhealthy dependency on Embry.

Embry took it in stride and offered himself up whenever the opportunity arose. Sometimes she'd sleep and he'd listen to music on his iPod.

Eventually, she spoke to him—at least enough to ask him what he was listening to—in a voice that was barely a whisper.

"All kinds of things. I like to mix music and I listen to all kinds of genres. Depends on my mood," he answered in a low voice, shrugging a bit awkwardly beneath her light weight.

She gestured to his earbuds. "Can I-" she asked quietly in a voice that was raspy from months of disuse.

He pulled an earbud out, gave it a quick buff on his T-shirt, and offered it up.

Loathe to let go of her personal heating pad, she tilted her head to give him access and let him slip the little bud into her ear so they could listen together.

She liked it.

It was a combination of things; pop, rap, hip hop, some blues, a little vintage jazz. After ten minutes or so and managing not to doze off right away despite her encroaching sleepiness, she asked, "What's it called?"

"Summer-mix-oh-five," he snorted. "Not very original, I know. I just wanted some light, happy stuff to listen to. It suited my mood today."

"It's good. I like it," she murmured as she began to drift off.

At lunch at Sam's the next day, she sat next to Embry. She still didn't speak very much to anyone other than Jake—and a few quiet words to Embry and Leah here and there—no more. Embry had to leave for patrol. He had taken a double, picking up Quil's shift so he could run his granddad around to some doctor's appointments.

Bella wondered how she would sleep more than two hours at a stretch with Embry running patrol for the next sixteen hours. She didn't even realize when it had happened, but she'd grown accustomed to him being there when she went to sleep. He wasn't always there when she woke up, but he tried to help her get to sleep when he could, knowing she slept better when he was around than anyone else. His presence was so calming. He was the eye in the storm that was the pack. She looked down as he stood to leave, his fingertips brushing her thumb as he tucked something into her hand.

Turning it over, she realized it was a thumb drive. She looked up at him in confusion, but all he said was, "To help you sleep," before he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and waved to the others as he headed for the door.

It was the music mix she told him she liked the previous day—Summer-Mix-05. She uploaded it to her phone, found a pair of earbuds she hadn't used in nearly a year, and settled into Sam's recliner. She was asleep in minutes.

She slept for another seventeen hours.

Alone.

When Sam told Embry, he smiled.

A week later, she was sleeping ten to twelve hours a night, often by herself without the aid of a friend or packmate. She still enjoyed the company, but she didn't _need_ it to sleep. She had Embry's music and that was almost as good as having Embry. When he slept over, the two of them slept like they hadn't closed their eyes in days.

Embry emailed her the files for a few more of his favorite mixes. She rotated through them, sometimes humming along as she helped Emily out with mindless chores around the house.

The first time Charlie came over for dinner and heard her singing "Titanium" under her breath as she set the table, he had to excuse himself from the room to hide the tears in his eyes.

He _knew_ she was still in there.

It was the first time anyone had heard her sing. Sam motioned to the other wolves to keep doing what they were doing, but every last one remained silent while they helped put dinner together. No one wanted to miss a note of Bella's sweet voice as she sang softly about finding inner strength.

Another week or so after that, Embry was running patrol with Paul and thoughtlessly let his mind drift.

_You should ask her._

Embry snapped out of it, _What?_

_You should ask her_, Paul repeated.

_Ask her what?_ Embry hedged.

_On a date, you nimrod dip-shit. Don't you know what to do with a hot girl?_ Paul's wolf mirrored his agitation, chuffing in annoyance.

_She's not ready-_

_She is_, Paul assured him. _She might not be ready to get naked and sweaty with you in the back seat of your Mom's Corolla yet, but she's ready to go out and have fun. _

Embry didn't know what to say to that.

_Jesus Christ, grow a pair already, man. Do I need to ask her out for you, too?_ Paul rolled his eyes, which was actually pretty comical in his wolf form. _Take her to one of those under twenty-one club shows you like so much._

_You want me to take Bella Swan into a mosh pit on a date?_ Embry was incredulous.

Paul snarfed a laugh, _I'd probably skip the mosh pit. She's an accident waiting to happen. Just take her to a show, one of those emo-y ones, though, as a friend. Save the death metal for another time._

_That's… actually not a terrible idea_, Embry conceded.

He asked her later that day.

She said yes.

Embry freaked out a little.

Freaked. The. Fuck. Out.

Maybe more than a little.

Jake and Quil talked him down.

Poor Jake's beleaguered heart was heavy. He loved Bella, but he knew from the pack mind that whatever this thing was that Embry was feeling for her was _so_ much stronger. He also got the distinct sense of _other_ that Sam had confided he was getting from Embry and Bella, too. It was hard to let go, but he loved them both like he loved his own sisters.

Maybe more.

So he shored up his best friend and conspired with Leah to help them make their not-a-date a little more than a night out between friends.

Embry got a text the night he and Bella were supposed to go up to Port A together, _Mind if we take my truck?_

_Nope. You want to meet at Sam's?_

_I'm at Leah's right now._

_Meet you there?_

_Sounds good._

Embry had no idea what to wear on a not-a-date date, so he dressed for comfort. The club would be hot, so he threw on a pair of dark jeans, a studded black belt to keep them up because his slim hips couldn't do the job, and a paper-thin T-shirt in a dark enough grey that sweat wouldn't show much.

Put a supernaturally hot werewolf in a room with enough bodies for the temp to peak at 110 or 115 degrees and sweat was inevitable.

He tucked the shirt in just in the front behind his belt buckle and called it good enough.

She met him by her truck and, though she appeared to be dressed for comfort, he sensed Leah's sneaky hand in choosing her outfit for the night.

Embry wasn't wrong.

Leah, having a unique perspective on Embry's likes and dislikes thanks to the pack mind, had picked his brain clean and offered suggestions on the sly when Bella had come over earlier asking to borrow something a little girlier than her usual lumberjack-chic.

Leah called Kim after plotting with Jake in the afternoon and the two girls conspired to pull together an outfit from their very different wardrobes that would drive Embry crazy. It was Jake who suggested that Bella talk to Leah about what to wear to Embry's thing that night.

Bella wore a deep burgundy satin camisole trimmed in matching lace culled from the back of Leah's closet. Kim's snug charcoal grey skinny jeans hugged Bella's curves. She was eating again so she had some curves for once in her life. On her feet were her own black leather DMs with the cuff turned down to show the red and black plaid lining. Around her waist, she tied a black denim jacket in case it was cold after the show on their way home.

Leah had offered to help Bella with a little makeup; she kept it simple, a metallic silver and light grey smokey eye and black winged liner with a deep, merlot-red lipstick. No blush, no powder. Bella's complexion was flawless, the dark circles under her eyes _gone_. Her hair had been straightened and hung in a long, dark, shining curtain over one shoulder. Leah had put a few metallic black clips over Bella's ear and up under her hair on the other side to keep her hair up and back like a faux undercut.

Embry's heart skipped a beat.

He knew Leah and Kim were just making her up as one of the fantasies they'd picked out of his head for the night because she was still really in no condition to make _that_ kind of effort on her own, but all he saw underneath the makeup and moody red and grey clothes was _his_ Bella.

And that was just fine by him.

Somehow he found his voice, "You look… great, Bella." He cleared his throat.

She shuffled her feet nervously, digging at some rocks in the driveway.

"You ready to go?" he asked in a moment of desperation to find something to break the awkward silence.

"Um, yeah. I just need to swing by Sam's to pick up my wallet-"

"I got mine. It's no problem. I asked you, so this should be like, my treat, right?"

"I think…" she lost her train of thought as he drew within arm's reach. His eyes were like dark amber honey—so intense.

He heard Leah and Kim inside the house, whispering and watching from the windows, but he couldn't care less what they thought or saw as he brought one hand up to brush a thumb over her cheek and asked, "You were saying… ?"

"Umm … I think … uh … it's … Oh!" she jumped as the tip of his thumb brushed the soft skin below her ear, bringing her back to her senses. "It's an under twenty-one club, but I still need my ID, I think. Like, to get in?"

Embry nodded dumbly.

"Um … so we should go?" she asked.

He nodded again, clearing his throat and opening the driver's side door. Bella turned to go around to the other side, but stopped when his hand landed on her arm, "Where are you going?"

"To get in?"

"Bella, it's _your_ truck. I just wanted to open the door for you," he said, pointing to the driver's seat.

A brief smile flashed across her face and he knew he had done something right. She climbed in and he went around to hop in the passenger seat.

In no time at all, they were in Sam's driveway. Embry could hear the faint rumble that meant most of the pack was inside watching a movie. "I'll come in with you," he offered.

She nodded, not wanting to run the gauntlet by herself.

Hustling to the front door with Embry at her back, she lost her nerve a little as she reached for the handle.

"The sooner you have your ID, the sooner we can go," he reminded her quietly.

She didn't often spend time with the entire pack. They'd spaced themselves out over the last few months to give her breathing room and avoid overwhelming her. By the sound of it, everyone but Kim and Leah were in Sam and Em's living room at the moment.

Embry recognized the look on her face, the uncertainty and self-conscious lip-biting.

"You look great. Don't be nervous. Go show 'em how far you've come. I'll be right here," he promised, grabbing her hand.

She took a deep breath and pulled the door open. He followed in her wake, hanging onto her hand as she led him down the front hall to the living room.

The noise had lessened considerably while they stood on the porch, but it ceased altogether when they got their first good look at Bella all turned out for her date with Embry.

He smiled, pleased at the surprise written on their faces.

Jake's eyes bugged out as Bella waved briefly, letting go of Embry's hand and ducking out to run to the guest room to grab her wallet.

Jared smirked.

Quil's mouth dropped open in surprise.

Seth grinned and looked around to make sure he wasn't the only one enjoying Bella's transformation back among the living.

Sam and Emily smiled together, tightening their embrace as they basked in the obvious improvement in their charge.

Paul whistled appreciatively—pulling a warning growl from easy-going Embry.

Sam's eyebrow popped up in surprise at Embry's possessive snarl.

Bella was back seconds later. The air was humming with tension and unasked questions, but she ignored it, focusing instead on Embry to try to calm her nerves, "All set?"

He cleared his throat. He'd been growling the whole time, "Sure, sure. Let's go. We've got a long drive." He put a hand on her lower back as they walked down the hallway to the front door.

Calling over her shoulder to the others that they'd call for a check-in in a few hours, Bella tentatively reached out and did the same, brushing her hand over the rippling muscles of his back.

Just before the pack lost sight of them disappearing through the door, he felt Bella tuck her hand in his back pocket and give a little squeeze.

The gleeful cackling of the pack was the last thing he heard as they got in the truck and he tried to fight off a pleased smile.

She grabbed his butt.

That revelation probably made him happier than it really should have. It was just a squeeze.

An hour and a half later, Bella was buying drinks and listening to Embry give her a rundown of reminders about drink safety in clubs. He said her best bet was to drink it as soon as she got it and not take her eyes off of it until it was empty, but he could sniff out any foreign substances pretty easily if she was unsure about her drink. She felt safer just knowing her date could smell trouble that easily. They'd argued over who was paying for drinks, but Bella won because Embry insisted on buying their tickets for the show.

"Bar, table, or dance floor?" he asked, lips brushing her ear so she could hear him in the noisy bar area.

"You know I can't dance, Emb," she said back, trying not to shout. She figured his ears were probably pretty sensitive to the volume in the club as it was. The last thing he needed was her shouting at him, too.

"You don't need to do anything special to dance to this music. Just feel it. Once we get out on the floor, you'll see. The crowd kind of moves as one, jumps as one, sways, grinds… You'll see," he promised, holding his drink by the rim and grabbing her hand to lead her through the crowd.

Stopping at a half-wall near the dance floor, he turned to Bella and patted the counter, inviting her to lean on it and people-watch while they finished their drinks.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence between them, she tucked her hair behind her ear and worked up the nerve to ask, "Why did you ask me to come, Emb?"

He didn't even pause to think it over before he answered, "You liked the mixes I gave you, all of them. You're sleeping, eating again. Listening to music and humming. I even heard you sing the other day. I thought you could use some fun again, too. Fun that makes you feel normal—not the kind that means riding wolfback with me, Jake, and Quil to the river to play with horse-sized wolves and sunbathe while you scratch Quil's belly just to see his leg kick like a real dog. It was time for some human fun. I … I like you, Bella. I want you to have fun, to smile again."

Putting her lips to his ear, she spoke in even tones so he would hear the sincerity in her voice when she told him, "I'm glad you did." She took a deep breath and admitted something she hadn't even realized she'd been holding back, "I like you, too. I'm glad we did this—just us."

"Me, too," he mouthed, trapped momentarily in her gaze. He licked his bottom lip and thought about kissing her when he noticed her heartrate picking up.

Her hand fluttered nervously up to touch her clavicle, fanning her neck.

Embry was glad they were so close. The thin, vaporous cloud of pheromones surrounding her thickened and he realized Paul had been half-way correct.

Bella might just be ready for a little _more_ than friendship.

"Finish your drink," he nodded to her cup, then leaned in to brush her ear with his lips as he confessed, "We need to dance so I have an excuse to get my hands on you."

She flushed with pleasure. Then, inspired by Embry's bold confession, she worked up a little of her own boldness and downed her energy drink, setting her glass next to his empty and slipping her hand into his.

"Show me?" she asked.

Embry couldn't keep the wolfish grin off his face as he gripped her hand and pulled her out onto the dance floor.

Five hours later, they were still dancing, taking just one short break for the bathroom and a quick call to Sam to get permission to stay out past Bella's curfew. They were having so much fun—Bella was having so much fun—Embry didn't want to to drag her away if he didn't have to.

The show was winding down as the final act was about to take the stage, but the two of them were still wired as Embry wound his body sinuously around Bella's and she ground her back against his front.

He raised her arms over her head, running his hands down the undersides, over her ribs. He grabbed her hips, circling his own and grinding them against her ass as she gyrated against his groin.

If there was a heaven, Embry hoped it was exactly like this; the heart-thumping bass he loved and grinding against Bella Swan's butt. All he could think about was getting his hands on it. Not that she hadn't given him plenty of opportunities and permission to touch her pretty much everywhere all night while they'd danced. Bella was game to try anything Embry suggested; she was living totally in the moment.

And she was having the time of her life.

- - - o - - -

At the five hour mark, Sam had grown concerned when he hadn't heard from either of them. They did _eventually _check in by phone, but not before Sam had decided to check on them himself.

He wasn't taking chances where Charlie Swan's daughter was concerned. Charlie had placed all his trust in Sam and Jake and their friends to do what they could to help Bella. Sam wasn't going to give Charlie any reason to feel like that trust had been misplaced.

He would have run up to Port A himself, but Jake and Paul offered to make the run, so Sam had given them the okay to run wolf with a change of clothes in a duffel bag so they could blend in when they got there.

Six hours after Embry and Bella drove away from Sam's place, Paul fired off a rapid series of texts to Sam from the club, _Everything's fine. Swan's smiling and laughing. Call looks like he died and went to heaven. Can't imagine why. They're both sweating like pigs. It's hotter than three hells in here._

Sam replied, _Take a picture. Em wants to see._

_Do you one better, boss_, Paul promised.

A few minutes later, Sam got a FaceTime call from Paul who had placed himself strategically behind a support column so he could get a shot of the dance floor, but not be caught spying by Embry. Sam held the phone out so Em could see.

Seth, Jared, Quil, Kim, Leah, and Emily all crowded around to look, too. Sam tried not to roll his eyes at his nosy pack. They were so much like real wolves that way sometimes.

Sam clicked 'accept' and they saw Jake—all six foot, seven inches of him—trying not to draw attention to himself as he pointed discreetly to a couple on the dance floor amidst a sea of bodies and Paul zoomed in.

They watched as Bella and Embry jumped in sync with the crowd, rocking, swaying and grinding their way through the song in bizarre synchronicity with everyone else on the floor. The crowd moved like a school of fish or flock of birds, everyone lost to and simultaneously in tune with the beat.

"Holy shit," Leah said softly. "Swan's dancing."

"That's not dancing," Quil shook his head. "Unless lap dancing counts."

"It's not a lap dance," Emily cuffed Quil upside the head. "They're bouncing and swaying together. I think they're cute."

"Swaying, my ass. She's grinding on his-"

"We _know_, Quil," the others reminded him.

"She looks hot," Paul conceded, a faceless voice behind the camera phone. There was a tussle as Jake growled and smacked him. "What? I'm saying—_look at her_. When's the last time you saw her all flushed and pink and fucking smiling? It looks good on her. This is exactly what she needed right now."

Jake stepped in front of the camera for a minute, "Sam, if going out with Embry does _this_ for her…"

"Yeah," Sam was nodding. "I'll find a way to get him more time off so he can take her out again soon."

Quil volunteered immediately, "I'll take one of his shifts next week. I owe him one as it is."

"Put me down for one, too, boss," Paul's voice overlapped Jacob's offer to do the same.

"Appreciate it, guys," he'd have done it himself anyway, but it'd be easier if they split it up.

"Embry's going to feel guilty about everyone taking his patrols…" Emily reminded Sam of minding Embry's pride.

"We'll swap 'em around as much as we can so he doesn't notice it right away. I'll explain about everybody wanting to help and…" he sighed. "I was already thinking about assigning him to long-term to Bella-duty anyway until we catch the psychotic leech. She sleeps better and talks more when he's around. You heard her. She's even started singing along with the music on his iPod sometimes."

"Are you sure he didn't imprint on her?" Kim asked.

The wolves all shook their heads, but Jared answered, "We'd have seen it in his head when he phases. What he feels for her is strong. Sam and Jake have been calling it _other_, but we don't really know what it is."

Faintly, through Paul's phone, they could hear Bella saying they should do this again soon.

Sam couldn't believe his ears.

Embry was pleasantly surprised, agreeing quickly before she changed her mind, "There's a thing in Seattle next weekend…"

"Another club show like this?" she asked, winding her hands behind his neck to pull him close so they could talk and keep dancing.

Embry snorted, gripping her waist and curving his body to fit hers, he answered, "Hardly. It's Seattle Deathfest XIII. All death metal."

"So, no dancing?" she pouted.

"Not like this, but it's a festival. If we don't like the music at one stage, we could go look for another one that suits us," he explained.

"Who's playing?"

"Local, small club bands, mostly. The Mortals, Red Fang, Jucifer, Tombsday, Pungent Stench, Crowbar, Unholy Grave, Final Conflict, Cancer, Immolation, Fangbangers, Left for Dead…"

"Seriously?" she stopped dancing.

"What?"

"You want to take me to see a death metal band called 'The Mortals'?" her lips curved in amusement as she rolled her hips into his.

He chuckled, "Okay, I can see where that might be kinda weird."

"No, more like 'kinda perfect'," her smile could have shamed the sun for brightness as she looked at Embry and cupped his cheek to keep him close. "See if you can get the time off. I'd love to go. Just you and me."

Turning the camera on himself, Paul asked, "You catch all that, boss?"

"Done deal, Lahote. Now get the hell out of there before they notice you and I catch hell," Sam ordered.

- - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - -

**FYI:** _an orca is a killer whale, a group of orca is called a pod, and the alpha or head of a pod is called a pilot or pilot whale,but I'm sticking with Alpha-just in case there was any confusion._


	2. Chapter 2: Paul

**Dedication:** _For meliz875._

**A/N:** _We're rounding out the holy hotness of wolf trinity this week because the birthday girl likes a little hot Lahote now and again with her Jake and Embry. ;) Mel's birthday is in, like, three weeks, so there's lots more to come during the Month of Mel. Not to worry!_

**Pre-reader: **meliz875

The **2nd Annual Tricky Raven Silent Auction **opens this weekend! Guess who's up on the auction block, people! ;) That's right. Your favorite smut-peddler. Go donate and bid! If you're my winning bidder, we can create some awesome smut together! Dirty, nasty, filthy shit that would make your spouse blush if they knew what you were secretly reading under the covers at night. ;)

Or, you know, you could bid on your _other_ favorite authors and win a chance to get your idea turned into a one-shot by … by one of _them_. :: sniff :: You guys'll bid on me, right? I don't wanna be the smutty one that no one knows what to do with who gets picked last for fanficball. Do you want me to be Chrissi the sad panda? :( :: sniff, sniff ::

You can find the link to Tricky Raven's 2014 Silent Auction on TR's main page at:_(Grrr... I can't figure out a way around the stupid URL block no matter how many spaces I use!)_**_ I will put the ink on my profile. PLEASE _**_visit my pro__file page and consider donating to keep one of the last bastions for us wolf girls __in the fandom up and running on the web._**_  
_**

**Inspiration for this chapter:**

Fuck music. This chapter is inspired by Alex Meraz's hot ass in my fantasies. I could pretend it's not, but then I'd be lying. Seriously, Mel had to talk me down a few times because I always write Paul like I want to crawl into his lap and grind on him while he pets me like his naughty kitty. Just sayin'.

- - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - -

**Chapter 2: Paul**

- - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - - o - - -

Embry was nothing if not patient. He had waited two long years for Bella Swan. A little more, truth be told.

Well, not _waited_ so much as moved at a snail's pace. Bella needed slow. She'd been burned badly before and was leery of leaping in with both feet again too quickly or letting someone get too close emotionally, which meant their progression as a couple had been practically glacial. They were, at best, _extremely _touchy best friends with benefits. Neither of them were willing to put a label on it just yet.

And the "L"-word?

No.

Neither had said it yet.

Embry was afraid of scaring her off.

Bella was afraid she'd say it and mean it and there was no taking it back and she had been down that road before and it was full of pitfalls and traps and Civil War Majors wanting to suck her dry over freakin' papercuts and, just, no. It was much easier to show him how she felt than to make some grand declaration and end up broken and sobbing on the forest floor again and— okay, she admittedly privately to herself, she may have been overthinking it, but she had good reasons!

Looking down at her beautiful face and chest flushed with excitement and not a little naughtiness as she struggled under the weight of a case of pilfered moonshine, Embry was thinking it might be time to take the next step.

He wanted to claim her, but first, he'd have to pin her down long enough to get her to listen when he told her he loved her.

The reaction she had to even a hint of those words made him think she was allergic or something. He'd put it off as long as he could, but he _needed _to say them. He needed her to know that she was _it_ for him.

He stumbled, causing his brothers to laugh at him as he got caught staring at her boobs and thinking about getting her alone again. It had been a while since he'd gotten his hands on B.

With a knowing grin and a poorly concealed snicker, Bella glanced down at the crate in her hands. Little swirls were drawn on labels on each of the jar caps.

She cocked her head curiously and nudged Embry, "Look. What is that? A six? Or is it a 'G'?"

He shrugged, "I don't know. They're Old Quil's. Maybe it's supposed to be an 'O'. His handwriting is pretty bad."

Bella thought that seemed just as likely as anything else she could come up with. She huffed, shifting the weight of the crate in her hands to take the pressure off her fingertips.

Paul growled with impatience, hefting the crate that Bella was struggling with and growling at the others, "For fuck's sake, can we go already? I wanna get hammered and see if we can get Swan to skinny-dip." He leered at her appreciatively, making her snicker.

Like she'd never gone skinny-dipping with the pack before…

Hazel tsk-tsk'd his foul mouth with a teasing click of her tongue and tick of her finger, "Such language from a Protector. What kind of role model would you make for the younger generation?"

"A terrible one," Jake and Quil quipped together, sniggering.

Jake motioned to Embry to hand over one of the crates, relieving him of half his noisy burden so they could move more quickly and easily through the woods to Third Beach at Strawberry Bay, where the older members of the pack had collected driftwood earlier in the day for a bonfire. The younger wolves as well as Sam and Emily were all sitting around the fire at the top of the cliffs there, chatting amongst themselves when the party of thieves of arrived.

They stacked the crates out of responsible, former-Alpha Sam's line of sight in the woods with some coolers full of other supplies for later and joined the rest of the pack around the low-burning, blue-green flames of the driftwood fire for some s'mores before Sam and Emily decided to call it an early night.

The packs' parents and a few Elders had gathered on First Beach for their own bonfire to catch up with one another while Renee was in town. Sam and Emily wanted to swing by to say a quick hello on their way home.

They gathered up their things while Jared took his turn to run a quick patrol. Knowing the woods had been quiet lately, Kim decided to go for a wolfback ride with Jared. There were so few vampire incursions these days, the pack only had to patrol a few times a day to check for new scents in the area and up into the state park to look for nomadic scent trails.

Jared threw a salute to his Alpha and Hazel and took off into the woods with his girl, stripping as he went and handing his shorts off to Kim before phasing so she could clamber onto his wide back.

She shouted over her shoulder, "We'll be back in twenty! Save us a few drinks!"

Hazel turned to her sisters, hands on her ample hips, "It's getting late. I think it's time for you to head home. I don't mind if the boys go back to the house with you, but Nui is going to call pretty soon to check and make sure you're in by curfew."

She was met with a chorus of whines from her sisters and their wolves.

Lani whined, "Haze … we were going to do some night-diving with you guys!"

"You mean drunken skinny-dipping," Hazel looked at them pointedly. "What am I—stupid? I don't want to hear it! I won't cover for the four of you again. You screwed up, running up to Vancouver and staying out on wolfback til four a.m. to skinny-dip last time! You're lucky Nui didn't haul your sorry asses all the way back to the island after that stunt. Go on home. There's a stack of pizzas in the freezer and two cases of soda in the fridge on the back porch. I picked up a couple of new movies in Port A yesterday, too—plenty to keep you four busy at home after curfew without getting drunk or naked _for once_."

"Fine," Laurel rolled her eyes, helping Lani gather up their things while Collin and Brady loaded the extra coolers into Collin's truck, "but we're not stupid, you know. We can tell you just want to get rid of us so you can suck face with Alpha Hot-ass."

Jake's blush could have rivaled Bella's just then. He coughed, turning away to hide his embarrassed laughter.

"Jealous much?" Hazel called out after her sisters as they wandered up the path to the parking lot and Collin's jeep.

"Seriously, Col," they could hear Laurel, the more outspoken of the two twins, telling her young mate as they walked away, "I bet I could bounce a quarter off your cousin's ass."

The remaining wolves on the beach roared with laughter when the quieter twin, Lani, muttered quietly, "More like a dime … because that ass is a _ten_."

Brady's low growl was the last thing they heard as the group piled into Collin's rig to head home.

Hazel waved them off with a bemused grin, turning back to Jake to offer apologies on behalf of her sisters, "You know they don't mean it, honey. They've got their own wolves. They just like to make you blush."

She rose to her toes and Jake met her halfway as she pressed her lips to his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned back. "I think they were onto something with the suckin' face, though. Don't you?" She waggled her eyebrows.

He grinned at her and started pressing kisses to her cheek, along her jaw, continuing down her throat as his hands ghosted over her curves and he rumbled a lupine purr, "Mmm … maybe."

A loud clap from Paul got everyone's attention. "Time for adult swim. Who wants a drink? Or are we diving first?" he asked, retrieving the crates from their hiding place.

"Can't we do both?" Quil smirked.

"Drinks, cards, diving?" Jake's suggestion was met with a rumble of general agreement.

Bella got to work opening the coolers and setting out all the drink mixers she and Paul had prepared at his house late that afternoon.

She and Paul hadn't always been close, but they'd come to an understanding over the years. She thought he was misunderstood and needed a few more good friends. He was a shameless flirt and liked to tease her to make her blush. Getting her drunk was fun, too. She'd sing and strip and raise hell in a way that made him proud when he could get her to let loose. He thought she could use a little more of that.

Not that Embry wasn't good for her. He had worked miracles on her self-esteem, but he tip-toed around her and romanced her.

He loved her. That much was obvious.

Anybody with half a brain could see that she was terrified of commitment.

Besides, Paul firmly believed that she was a kindred spirit—a born hellraiser who needed a little encouragement to act her age from time to time rather than the middle-aged old soul who had first moved to Forks three years earlier.

Paul liked to see her let her hair down—really let out her inner devil—when she was hangin' out and trying to convince herself she was just another one of the guys. It didn't happen often at home, but when it did, it was something to see.

Really something to see.

Bella Swan would have turned her father's hair grey if he knew some of the shit Paul had talked her into over the years.

Their friendship was a bizarre combination of odd couple and partners in crime.

She pulled one of the jars of moonshine out of the top crate and some containers from the nearest cooler, pouring off a double-shot into a Solo cup and topping it off with a scoop of pureed strawberries and some lemonade, tasting as she worked side-by-side with Embry and Paul.

"Mmm… here, taste," she held the cup up for Paul's inspection.

He sniffed at it and turned the cup, touching his lips to the plastic over the mark left by her own lips. His eyes glimmered with the dark pleasure he gained from the taste of her under the flavor of the drink. The intensity of his gaze made her squirm.

Given the opportunity, he figured he would have gladly tasted _her_, too.

His wolf gave him some shit about it because of the woo-woo wolf thing she had with Embry, but Paul—the man—couldn't deny the attraction.

He tried. Fuck, he tried. He'd never willingly fuck things up, though, for her and Embry, and that's what kept him on the straight and narrow for the most part when it came to his friendship with Bella.

He licked his lips, running his tongue slowly and sensuously over his bottom lip in a way that was intended to torment her before answering, "S'good. You were right. The strawberries take away the bitterness from the moonshine."

Hesitating for a second and pursing his lips with a hint of the disdain the others would expect from him, he seemed to wage an internal battle before saying grudgingly, "Welcome home, tick-licker. This place was boring as shit without you."

She tucked her head down and tried not to grin. She _knew_ he'd missed her when she was gone!

That said, he leaned over and—in a move that still surprised the pack no matter how many times they witnessed it—hugged Bella Swan, coaxing a low hum of pleasure from the petite brunette the others were never really sure he'd learned to do more than tolerate.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

Underneath all the bluster and teasing, Paul admired Bella; her bravery, her strength, the way she took charge of her life and fought her way back from the brink of madness and self-loathing after the leech abandoned her in the woods. She'd suffered for months from venom exposure. She could hardly speak in the months after her abandonment. The leech had fucked her up good.

She learned to lean on her friends without being totally dependent on them for her happiness. Jake and Hazel had done everything they could to support and encourage her and Embry had been her rock, but it was Bella who learned how to truly live again.

Spending more time with the pack, she spread her wings a bit after they finally caught the red-headed leech and her little band of freakishly strong vamps a few days after Bella's high school graduation. In the sunny, summer months that came after, it looked like the spark was finally back in her eyes.

Through the pack mind and their occasional orders to tail the couple on their non-dates, he knew she'd grown a lot closer to Embry over the years.

Not that she ever talked about it. She was such a staunchly private person when it came to her feelings.

She and Embry had a shared love of under-appreciated club bands. The genre didn't matter. It was more about the club experience; getting lost to the music, the comforting thump of the bass in her chest, and the feel of Embry moving his hips sinuously to the beat under her hands.

They went to shows together in Port A and Seattle for a few months back then in the early days and Embry accompanied her on her first campus visit to U-Dub when Jake couldn't make it due to his dad's increasing diabetes problems. The pack offered to help out so Jake could be there for Bella, but Embry stepped up into this new role he had carved out in her life and Jake knew she was in good hands, so that was that.

He wouldn't call their initial club nights dates exactly, but Paul knew Bella and Embry hadn't been innocent friends for a long time either.

Paul thought she deserved more than a friend with benefits, but he knew he wasn't the one to give it to her. Despite the outward changes of her maturing style that never ceased to surprise him, Bella Swan was a girl for white picket fences, two-point-five kids, and a freakin' labrador retriever.

Damned if he was going to be the lab who curled up at her feet at the end of the day.

So she and Embry went out on their non-date dates those first few months, and eventually got around to playing a little 'you-show-me-yours' in her truck on dark backroads while her friendships with the rest of the pack flourished.

Jared and Kim and occasionally some of the others would join Embry and Bella for double dates. The girls had kept up their girls nights the last two years, even though they didn't happen as often anymore as they had before Bella left for school.

Jake had been neatly friend-zoned in the early days which he seemed to almost welcome after seeing Embry's feelings for her in the pack mind.

Quil perved on Embry's memories every chance he got, conveniently forgetting that Bella was his distant cousin.

Seth and Leah were spending a lot more time with Bella as Charlie tried to lend a hand around the Clearwater place after Harry's passing. The two families began to merge before anyone really realized it was happening.

Even the pups that phased late—almost a year after the Cullens left—took a shine to Bella, seeking her out for help with the extra summer course work the Elders and the school had agreed to give them to keep them from falling behind, and sucking up for her homemade cookies and brownies with every 'A' they brought home from a tutoring session.

Sam and Emily tried to ignore the teenage drama and focused on the wellbeing of the maturing pack and Bella's progress, easily extending the pack kinship to her and treating her like family even after Jake took over as Alpha when he turned eighteen. For Bella's part, Sam and Em were more like parents to her than her own had ever been. She came home to visit them as often as, if not more often than, Charlie.

Then there was Paul.

It was during the fall break of her first semester at U-Dub—the weekend Bella first brought Hazel home when she and Jake had met for the first time. Bella could see the writing on the wall between the two of them. Realizing that she couldn't rely on her two friends to prop up her fragile self-esteem forever, she focused on the precious little time she had with Embry when he didn't have patrol and decided to tackle the puzzle that was Paul, finally coming to the conclusion that knowing your enemy was the best way to befriend him.

She set out to do just that.

That first long weekend home from school—Columbus Day weekend—they got to know each other better, maybe even gained a better understanding of why each of them were the way they were.

It all began with two beers.

He was working on a new back deck when Bella stopped by. She called out, asking if anyone was home and he shouted back to come on through the house and grab a couple of beers on the way.

Stopping at the fridge, she snagged two beers and popped their caps on the door-mounted opener before heading out the back door to the porch. Paul was stripped to the waist as usual, but he was covered in sweat, little bits of sawdust clinging to his back and knees. The air had been thick and close for days with the recent unseasonably warm weather. (Old Quil blamed global warming loudly and constantly to anyone who would listen.) His feet were bare and his bronzed skin was glistening. Bella imagined what it would be like to straddle his waist and run her tongue down his throat—just to taste him one time.

_Salty_, she imagined.

That had been happening more and more lately. Becoming close to Embry, she'd had tapped into a new sexuality she hadn't been aware of before. Suddenly, she was aware of hot guys everywhere.

She noticed them.

They noticed her.

With the patience of a saint, Embry took pride in her burgeoning self-confidence. He was the last one who would complain about Bella's new, tinier wardrobe. She was talking about body piercings, too.

_Body_ piercings.

Embry couldn't wrap his head around it, trying to imagine what she'd pierce first.

Because she talked about _piercings_, as in more than one.

Paul's dick jumped at the idea when he heard it, too.

Lounging against the half-finished railing, she tipped the second beer back and chugged half of it before looking back down at him.

"Like what you see, Swan?" he leered at her, running a grimy hand down his chest. He knew he looked good, dirt and all.

"It's not bad. It _is_ too bad about that _other_ problem you have, though," her lips tipped up in a taunting grin behind the lip of her beer bottle.

"What problem?" he snorted.

"Your mouth."

A slow, easy, answering grin spread across his face, "You've got it all wrong. My mouth is the _solution_. It's good for what ails you," he hinted darkly, running his long, facile tongue over his lips and teeth.

Bella shuddered with a flare of unexpected desire—on the inside.

On the outside, nothing.

She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Two could play his game.

He had leaned back against the house, propping his drink hand up on his bent knee and squinting at her. "When I asked you to get a couple of beers, I meant for me. Wolf, remember? It takes three times as much alcohol for me to enjoy it."

"Story of your life, right? Always needing three times as much of everything to get some _satisfaction_?" she smirked, "So I'll get you another." Tilting her head back and finishing hers off, she held her hand out for his empty so she could go get seconds.

Paul watched her closely, assessing her mood and the changes in her since she'd gone back to school. Her brown hair was shorter and darker—almost black. It was cut at a sharp angle, short in the back and longer in the front so it was barely brushing her shoulder, and she'd given herself dark cherry red highlights. She had an edgy undercut on one side of her head from the night that Hazel had tried to talk her out of giving herself a drunken haircut over the sink in their dorm room after a party.

Paul had heard about the haircut through the grapevine from Jake.

It made him smile to think of Bella getting drunk and trying to shave her head because she thought needed a change. She didn't do anything half-assed or half-way.

Hazel had to wrestle the clippers out of her hands, then talked her into waiting until she was sober to make any future decisions about her hair.

Bella had shown up to Paul's in black skinny jeans, her black DMs, and a threadbare, tiny tomato-red T-shirt emblazoned with The Kinks logo that unseasonably hot October day during their Columbus Day break. Paul recalled Embry giving her the shirt for her birthday. Thanks to the pack mind, he knew she wore it all the time, often braless with the tiniest little pair of red, metallic panties when she was alone with Embry. He'd nip at the enticing tips of her breasts through the shirt and slide his hands up the back beneath the hem. She loved the feel of Embry's large hands on her lower back and would arch like a cat when he touched her there.

Paul memorized all those little details and was disappointed to realize she was wearing a dark swimsuit under the same shirt the day she came to visit him.

Her hoodie was tied around her waist due to the heat and he could see the ties of her black swimsuit peeking above the neckline at the back of the T-shirt.

This was not the Bella Swan he remembered leaving for school in August.

Even _that_ Bella was miles away from the one who first went out with Embry back in the spring.

There was none of that ghost girl left in the succulent, curvy creature before him whom he'd come to know through Embry's memories.

He adjusted his dick as she crossed the porch. Before she disappeared inside to grab more beer, Paul said quietly, "If you wanna … stick around, go grab one of my T-shirts and some drawstring shorts from my room. Look in the back of the closet for some of my old pre-phase stuff. That dark, emo shit you have on will cook you in ten minutes out here in the sun."

She nodded and continued inside.

Ten minutes later, she had on an old pair of his cutoffs from junior high that were two sizes too big and slung low on her hips, and her little black bathing suit. She had three beers that time—one for her, two for him—and she was barefoot, the dark purple polish on her toes a sharp contrast to her fair skin.

Paul never finished the deck that day. They lay side-by-side on the finished section of deck, feet dangling over the edge on the side with no railing, drinking, mocking and goading each other before they made plans to go out that night to check out the blues, brews, and barbecue festival in Forks.

Embry had been sleeping most of the afternoon because he had a long patrol ahead that night. Bella needed the distraction Paul was providing. She missed Embry. She'd seen him the weekend before, but it was so much harder to be _home_ and not be able to be with him the entire time. Time spent with the pack helped, but there was really no substitute for Embry.

Bella suggested Paul put a roof over the deck so he could hang a porch swing.

He asked her what the fuck he was supposed to do with a porch swing.

Flushing beet red, she bit her lip before answering, "You might meet someone-" she cleared her throat, "-someday who likes to drink … coffee on the porch. It would be a nice place to sit and read."

That was when Paul realized Bella could see herself there, doing that, maybe drinking beer with him—that maybe she was picturing exactly that as they lay there harassing each other and swilling beer.

_Embry's_, his wolf reminded him.

He didn't know what to say that wouldn't make him sound like a dick or a pussy, so he offered a compromise, "I could get a hammock instead—one of those big double ones. It would be more comfortable than laying here on the hard floor. I could lay in it and drink beer and there'd be room—if someone who was always falling asleep at the drop of a hat came over to drink beer with me one afternoon and shoot the shit—there'd be room to lay in it with me."

He turned his head to squint at her with one eye, keeping the other squeezed shut against the sun shining high overhead, waiting to see what she would say—if she would say anything.

Her eyes met his and she chewed on her lips thoughtfully, letting the subtext of their conversation roll around in her head before answering, "We could go over to Newton's now. Mike's mom would still give me my employee discount. We could pick up a hammock and have it put together before we go back out to the festival tonight."

"We could," he agreed, nodding. "I don't have to patrol tonight. Maybe I'll have myself a little backyard campout and sleep in it."

That's exactly what he did, but he didn't sleep alone.

For all the times she'd passed out in the previous months with one of her packmates, Paul had never had the pleasure of napping with Bella.

He thought maybe he finally figured out what Embry had known all along.

She brought out this weird protective side in him, even as her tight little body enticed him to take more.

The next morning, Jake and Quil came running out of the trees throwing on shorts, laughing and shoving as they stumbled up the new steps to Paul's unfinished deck in search of their pack brother. He was late coming to Sunday breakfast at Sam and Emily's.

Bella, too. Hazel was out hunting her down.

Neither Jake nor Quil knew what to make of the scene that greeted them. Paul, still dressed in his nicer clothes from their evening out—dark jeans and a dark grey button-down—lay stretched out in a brand new hammock on the finished half of the deck. In his arms was a girl in black jeans and a tiny red T-shirt with Paul's navy blue hoodie laid over her back like a blanket. Paul had an arm wrapped over her back under the hoodie, pinning her in place, and their boots were both kicked off under the hammock. A dozen empty beer bottles and three tequila bottles littered the floor on either side of it.

The girl shifted in Paul's hold, tilting back as if she would roll out of the hammock. He braced her with one hand until she settled in at his side. Burying her face in his neck, the hoodie fell off of her shoulder, better revealing the clothes underneath. It wasn't until they got closer that Quil recognized The Kinks logo on the T-shirt and the owner's little purple-polished toes.

Quil had seen a very vivid memory in Embry's head of him sucking on those polished toes the previous weekend in Seattle when he ran up to visit.

Embry and Bella were into some pretty kinky shit for newbies.

Looking back up at Paul in stunned silence, they saw him raise a finger to his lips in a bid to keep them from waking her.

They retreated to the steps and watched as Paul shifted, gathering her in his arms, and carried her inside. They saw the flash of grey from his shirt as he passed the windows, following his progress up to his room where they could just make out his shadow as he lay her down in his bed and covered her up.

She murmured at the loss of his heat, complaining about the cold when he pulled away. A rustle and flick of a blanket could be heard along with the rattle of metal on hard plastic and a few whispered words of comfort before Paul made his way quietly back down the stairs and outside.

"What?" he nodded at his brothers.

"You're late for breakfast at Sam's. We just came to… Hazel is looking for… Does Bella want to… ?" Jake was floundering. He didn't know what the fuck to say.

For his part, Quil was pissed. He knew Embry had been trying to give Bella space and time to figure out what she wanted and he hoped it might be him. He never imagined Paul of all people would ever show interest in sweet, quiet, little Bella Swan.

Paul scratched the back of his head, answering quietly as he looked up and back at his bedroom window where Bella lay sleeping, "She's not going to be up for breakfast anytime soon. I put a bucket next to the bed just in case, but even if she's not hungover, she partied pretty hard last night. Er—we did. She's probably gonna sleep 'til noon. In fact-" he moved towards the door, but Jake caught his wrist.

"You're not sleeping with her," he bit out between clenched teeth.

"I am. _Sleeping_, Jay. I need sleep. I have _one_ bed. She's in it," Paul's calm was unusual and disquieting. It made Jake's hackles raise in suspicion. "Nobody bats a fucking eye when she passes out on anybody else. She falls asleep here _one time_ after having a few drinks and, suddenly, I'm the douchebag who can't keep his hands to himself? What the fuck? You two ever heard of platonic friendship or harmless flirting? People do that, too, you know."

"Nothing you ever do is _harmless_, Lahote," Quil growled, he and his wolf incensed at their brother's apparent intimacy with Bella.

Jake and Quil were just looking out for their best friend. Embry _loved_ her—hadn't worked up the nerve to say it yet, but he did love her.

Paul took pity on the two of them, "We're only sleeping. That's it. We're friends, Jay. Just like she is with the rest of the fucking pack. She was missing Emb because he got stuck with the shit shift. We managed to get along well enough for one night to drink, talk about concerts we could all go to when she's home for Thanksgiving break, and fall asleep in the hammock she talked me into buying instead of finishing the deck yesterday." He snorted, muttering, "Porch swing. Pfft! Can't get drunk and sleep in a porch swing."

"Don't fuck with her, Paul," Quil warned. "She's not like all the easy skanks you chase. You could break her without even trying. You _know_ how Embry feels about her."

"I'm not trying. I-" he coughed, clearing his throat. "She's okay, you know? She drinks like a goddamn fish, she likes Patron, and sings off-key when she's drunk. She didn't puke or cry once all night. She's actually pretty cool," he admitted. "Besides, you think I _don't_ know how Embry feels? I see in his head, too. Maybe she just wanted … fuck, I don't know! It was … _nice_. She treated me like she treats everybody else. She didn't flinch every time I moved or assume the worst of me or say any of the shit _you_ guys do about me only being interested in one thing. I mean, okay, yeah, she did, but she didn't _mean_ it. There isn't a mean bone in her body. It's not like I've been particularly friendly to her before, either. I avoided her and it was stupid," he rambled on, "This- She was… _fun_ and she's _fine_. I don't need to a get a girl drunk to get laid and _you know it_." He stuck his finger in Quil's face. "How you think I could- or would- Shit! She's Embry's! I wouldn't do that!" He ran his hands through his hair viciously, agitated. "Fuck. You know what? She's in no condition to go anywhere right now anyway."

He didn't wait for a reply. Stalking back inside and slamming the door, he flipped the lock out of spite.

Jake and Quil went back to Sam's. They spoke in hushed tones about the surprising turn of events at Paul's over breakfast that morning while Embry was out on patrol. The pack didn't know what to make of it. Paul did _not_ befriend chicks. He didn't date and he sure as shit didn't take them home and put them _in his_ _bed_.

While the pack gossiped over pancakes, Paul stomped up the stairs, stopping just long enough to change into a pair of cut-off sweats and tug Bella's tight jeans off. In a rare moment of conscience, he'd thrown a sheet over her lower half and worked sight unseen under the sheet to remove her pants.

He didn't even let his hands wander.

Kneeling by her side, he laid the jeans over the chair by the bed and murmured, "Hey B, I'm leaving the bucket here by the bed. Your jeans are on the chair. You warm enough? Want some shorts or something?"

She hummed quietly under her breath, "Mmm… Embry."

He sighed. "I'm fresh out of Embry. He's on patrol. You'll have to settle for me for now," he said by way of apology as he crawled over her to get to his preferred side, stretching out on his back.

She turned over and curled into his warmth as he pulled out his phone and hit the '4' on his speed dial.

It went straight to voicemail, so he spoke quietly, "Emb, when your patrol's done, head over to my place with a change of clothes for Bella—something comfortable. Your girl is passed out drunk in my bed latched onto me like a spider monkey, moaning for you in her sleep. And just so you don't get your dick in a knot, _no, _I didn't sleep with her. I _did_ get her drunk enough to sing to me, though," he chuckled darkly before hanging up.

He lowered the phone and pressed 'end', flicking through his apps to set an alarm just in case so he'd be up in time for the football game with the pack on the beach later that day.

Enjoying the feel of her nails kneading at his biceps, he stared at the ceiling, thoughts drifting as his eyelids fluttered, listening to the soothing pulse of her quiet, even heartbeat as she tried to sleep off the beer and tequila, muttering quietly into his shoulder about wolves and, not at all to his surprise, Embry.

- - - o - - -

_**E/N:** Leave me some love if you're loving a little Paul and Bella. ;)  
_


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